Carol Yvonne Carruthers v Associated Newspapers Ltd

Hearing date: 18 December 2018

Approved Judgment

I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.

THE HONOURABLE Mr Justice Nicklin

The Claimant has brought claims against the Defendants, Associated Newspapers Limited (“ANL”) and News Group Newspapers Limited (“NGN”) for libel, misuse of private information and alleged breaches of the Data Protection Act 1998. The claims are brought in separate actions, but the nature of the present issues before the Court meant that it was convenient to deal with them at a single hearing.

The claims arise from the publication of the following articles – the text of which are set out in the Appendix to this judgment with paragraph numbers added in square brackets:

i) an article by ANL on the MailOnline website from 6 March 2017 (“the ANL Article”) – Appendix Part 1;

ii) an article by NGN on The Sun website from 6 March 2017 (“the First NGN online Article”) – Appendix Part 2;

iii) an article by NGN on page 17 of the print edition of The Sun for 7 March 2017 (“the First NGN print Article”) – Appendix Part 3; and

iv) an article by NGN on The Sun website from 7 March 2017 (“the Second NGN Article”) – Appendix Part 4.

When the articles were published, the Claimant was employed by Haringey Council (“the Council”). She held the posts of Deputy Assistant Director of Children's Safeguarding and Head of Services for Children In Need of Support and Protection. Advanced as part of her claim for damages, the Claimant contends that, as a result of the publication of the articles, she was suspended and she later resigned.

Letters of claim were sent to ANL on 14 September 2017 and to NGN the following day. The Claim Forms in both actions were issued on 5 March 2018. The Claim Forms were served (together with Particulars of Claim) on 5 July 2018 in both actions.

In her Particulars of Claim, the meanings that the Claimant contends each article bears are as follows:

i) The ANL Article:

“[The Claimant], boss in charge of child welfare at Haringey Council at the time of the Baby P case, and at the time of the Victoria Climbie case, who is now assistant director of Haringey Council with responsibility for safeguarding vulnerable children, behaved unprofessionally, scandalously and totally unacceptably by sending whilst at work [to] an unknown man she met on an online dating website sexual images of herself and also sexual texts and is unfit to perform her duties at Haringey Council.”

ii) The First NGN online Article and the First NGN print Article:

“[The Claimant], boss in charge of child welfare at Haringey Council at the time of the Baby P case, and at the time of the Victoria Climbie case, who is now assistant director of Haringey Council with responsibility for safeguarding vulnerable children, behaved unprofessionally, scandalously and totally unacceptably by sending whilst at work [to] an unknown man she met on an online dating website sexual images of herself and also sexual texts. She is also unfit to perform her duties at Haringey Council and a serious danger and risk to vulnerable children in her charge and should be dismissed immediately.”

iii) The Second NGN Article:

“[The Claimant], who is in charge of child welfare at Haringey Council was in charge at the time of the Baby P case and at the time of the Victoria Climbie case and who is now also assistant director of safeguarding vulnerable children is unfit to carry out those duties as she has been behaving unacceptably and improperly by sending whilst at work [to] and unknown man she met on a dating website sexual images of herself and also sexual texts”.

On 21 August 2018, NGN issued an Application Notice seeking:

i) that the Court determine, as preliminary issues, (a) the meaning of the words complained of for the purposes of the defamation claim; and (b) whether the words complained of are statements of fact or expressions of opinion (“the Preliminary Issues”); and

ii) summary judgment against the Claimant in relation to her libel claim on the grounds that she had no real prospect of succeeding with her claim (“the Part 24 Application”).

By order dated 19 September 2018, the Court directed the trial of the Preliminary Issues and the Part 24 Application should be heard on the same date. The trial of the Preliminary Issues was listed for 18 December 2018.

On 14 November 2018, ANL also issued an Application Notice seeking a trial of Preliminary Issues in its action and summary judgment on the same basis as NGN had in its action.

By order dated 4 December 2018, the Court directed the trial of the Preliminary Issues in the ANL action and the Part 24 Application also be heard on the same date. These were also listed for 18 December 2018.

Defences have not been served. Orders directing the service of a defence in each action will be given once the current applications have been disposed of.

ANL and NGN have, nevertheless, identified the meanings that they contend the respective articles bear for the purposes of the trial of the Preliminary Issues:

i) The ANL Article:

“The Claimant, whilst a manager at Haringey Council with responsibility for protecting vulnerable children, sent sexual messages whilst at work, containing sexual images she took of herself, to a man she met on an online dating website, and one of the images could have identified where she worked; and this was unacceptable and unprofessional behaviour for someone in her position.”

ii) The First NGN online Article and the First NGN print Article:

“The Claimant acted in an inappropriate and unacceptable manner as a manager at Haringey Council with responsibility for protecting vulnerable children by sending sexual messages and pictures whilst at work, including sexual messages of herself taken at the office, to a man she had met online and by revealing to him that she worked for the council in a sensitive role”.

iii) The Second NGN Article:

“The Claimant acted inappropriately as a manager at Haringey Council with responsibility for protecting vulnerable children by taking intimate sexual images of herself at the council's offices which she sent while at work to a man she had met on a dating website.”

Two other matters were raised and dealt with at the hearing:

i) applications by ANL and NGN to strike out passages of the Claimant's plea of aggravated damages in each claim; and

ii) an application by NGN that the Claimant be ordered to provide particulars of her claim for special damages.

Trial of Preliminary Issues as to Meaning and Fact/Opinion

Law

The legal principles the Court has to apply are well-established and not disputed by the parties:

i) The Court's task is to determine the natural and ordinary meaning of the words complained of. That meaning is the meaning that the hypothetical reasonable reader would understand the words bear. In assessing meaning, no evidence beyond the words complained of is admissible: Charleston v News Group Newspapers [1995] 2 AC 65, 70 per Lord Bridge. The same case establishes the principle that the ordinary reasonable reader is taken to have read the whole of a publication; in this case, the whole of the article. That is important, because the context in which the words complained of appear will often influence the meaning (see Paragraph (vi) below).

ii) By this process, the Court arrives at the single natural and ordinary meaning that the words complained of bear. It is well-recognised that there is an artificiality in this process because individual readers may understand words in different ways: Slim v Daily Telegraph [1968] 2 QB 157, 173D-E per Lord Diplock.

iii) In determining the single meaning, the Court is free to choose the correct meaning; it is not bound by the meanings advanced by the parties. There is also an established principle that the tribunal of fact (historically, the jury) cannot find a meaning that is more injurious than the Claimant's pleaded meaning: Slim 175F per Lord Diplock.

iv) Jeynes v News Magazines Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 130 sets out the applicable principles [14]:

(1) The governing principle is reasonableness.

(2) The hypothetical reasonable reader is not naïve but he is not unduly suspicious. He can read between the lines. He can read an implication more readily than a lawyer and may indulge in a certain amount of loose thinking but he must be treated as being a man who is not avid for scandal and someone who does not, and should not, select one bad meaning where other non-defamatory meanings are available.

(3) Over-elaborate analysis is best avoided.

(4) The intention of the publisher is irrelevant.

(5) The article must be read as a whole, and any ‘bane and antidote’ taken together.

(6) The hypothetical reader is taken to be representative of those who would read the publication in question.

(7) In delimiting the range of permissible defamatory meanings, the Court should rule out any meaning which, ‘can only emerge as the product of some strained, or forced or utterly unreasonable interpretation’.

(8) It follows that ‘it is not enough to say that by some person or another the words might...